


The Good Side

by dontlikedarkness



Category: Total Drama (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Break Up, F/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 16:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24160123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontlikedarkness/pseuds/dontlikedarkness
Summary: She’d let herself believe those words, let herself believe his promise, because it was something she so desperately wanted. He’d known that. He’d used it against her, in the end.in which courtney struggles to move on.
Relationships: Courtney/Duncan (Total Drama), Courtney/Gwen (Total Drama), Duncan/Gwen (Total Drama)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	1. sympathize

**Author's Note:**

> i'm in the midst of writing a longer duncney fic, and i needed a break - thus this drabble was born. there's a tiny bit of fluff if you look closely, and there's a cute bonding moment between courtney and gwen that i particulalry enjoyed writing. there is no happy ending, but sometimes it's better that way.

Courtney hated a lot of things - losing, cowards, overthinking - but there was little she hated more than break-ups. They were messy, and she didn’t do messy. There was the trouble of deciding who got what, which pictures to burn and which to tuck away in a little drawer for when things didn’t hurt so much; how to cut someone loose who had been a part of her life for so long. There was no clean way to go about it. She couldn’t just block him, not when they’d met each other’s parents, not when her favorite tee was still somewhere on his bedroom floor and her closet was littered with his lighters and his knives and probably his jeans. She didn’t want to see him while she was still hurting, but she wanted his stuff _gone_ , and she knew he’d throw a fit should she dump all his paraphernalia on her doorstep for him to pick up.

She’d tried to think about it logically, to alienate herself from the situation and use that lawyer brain of hers to find a solution. She’d made list after list, pros and cons, Venn diagrams, even a detailed, step-by-step plan of action so that neither of them would have to come into contact with the other. They were all scattered in crumpled little wads of ink and paper beneath her desk, the waste basket overflowing with them.

A part of her wished he were here. He would call her princess, kiss away her tears, and take the paper into the kitchen to burn over the stove. _Out of sight, out of mind_ , he’d tell her, a shit-eating grin on his face when she tried to tell him off. He’d hold the flaming paper over his head while she jumped to grab it, and she’d get all huffy about the ash in her hair and on her counters and nice hardwood floors. He’d ruffle her hair to make it worse and flash her that wicked smile and say _Look babe, you’re distracted. It worked._ And she’d scoff all she wanted, but there’d be no hiding the tiny smile that bloomed on her face. Everything would be okay.

Except it wasn’t. He was gone, even if his presence lingered. She moved her hand to brush a stray hair from her face, grimacing at the cigarette burn it had been covering. She’d bought him an ashtray to keep at her place, but he’d insisted the burns would give her desk character. A reminder of his chaos, to comfort her when he couldn’t.

She sighed, moving to her bed in an attempt to escape him. She tucked her arm under the pillow and rolled to face her window, a violent sob wrenching itself free when she realized that her sheets still smelled of him. Musky and sweet, like aftershave with a hint of her own perfume. It followed him everywhere, he used to complain. Like she was haunting him, so he wouldn’t forget his person. And he wouldn’t, he’d assured her.

They’d been sprawled on his roof, her head on his chest while they watched the stars. She pointed out her favorite constellations, and he called her a know-it-all, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing along her hip bone. He’d flipped her over so he could look at her and he’d smiled that secret, shy smile reserved for only his most tender moments. It was rare, and it showed a vulnerable side to him that she cherished deeply, knowing she was the luckiest girl in the world to get to see it. _It’s you and me, Courtney_ , he’d told her, sliding a large, warm hand into her back pocket. _It’s us against the world, forever and always. I’ll never let you go._

And she’d let herself believe those words, let herself believe his promise, because it was something she so desperately wanted. He’d known that. He’d used it against her, in the end.

 _You expect too much from me_ , he’d snarled, his tone cold and his eyes colder. _You want to settle down. You’ve convinced yourself I’m a better person than I am, that I’m somehow worthy of you and your goals. I’m not that kinda person, princess. I don’t do long-term and houses and talks of marriage or kids. I’m not meant to be tied down._ And then he’d left, the door slamming behind him with enough force to knock one of her pictures off the walls. He’d left her there, eyes watering, speechless, without another word. There had never been an official _end_ to things - that wasn’t his style. He’d walked out on her, and that was that. He was gone.

She clenched her fists at her side, angry tears threatening to spill over. She sat up and chucked a pillow at the wall, a small glimmer of satisfaction rising in her when it hit a picture frame, dropping it to the floor with enough force that the glass shattered.

***

A month had passed, and she still couldn’t shake him from her mind. Her sheets had been washed more than once, his various possessions shoved into a box in the back of her closet, the cigarette burns and crude carving of their initials on her desk covered with a fresh coat of wood stain and a pencil holder, to hide the carving. Still his presence seemed to haunt her, as though it was imbued into the very foundation of her apartment. Everywhere she looked sparked some unwanted memory. Her stove-top brought about their one year anniversary, when she’d come home early from work to find him cooking for her, and she’d stood on her tippy-toes to wrap her arms around his neck and plant a kiss there. Her couch had a wine stain from New Year’s Eve, when they’d each been too wrapped up in the other to notice her drink slipping. All the pictures of him were gone from the walls, but she could still tell you which ones went where and exactly what they’d been doing when the picture had been taken. Even the door brought about a sense of hurt, like a splinter in a raw wound - an all too painful reminder that he had walked out on her, just like that. Without a second glance.

It didn’t take long for her to wind up on the floor of her closet, sobbing into an old shirt of his, the box of his things opened at her side. She couldn’t go on like this. Not surrounded by him.

She needed to put her energy into something else - so she did the only thing she could think of, and pulled up her lease agreement. She needed _out_ , and chances were, it was a shoddy contract. Her landlord had never been the most competent man, so it wasn’t a stretch to assume that there would be a loophole. It was only a matter of time before she located it.

***

Boxes were scattered all across the apartment, some only partially filled, most with hastily scrawled labels to describe the contents. Usually she was more organized than this, but she had to move fast - the keys to her new place were coming in just a few days, and her landlord would have potential tenants coming in the moment she vacated the property.

There were a couple of boxes situated on her coffee table that she’d hoped to have out of the way by now, but she hadn’t been able to muster the courage to reach out until a few moments ago. She’d waited with bated breath for Duncan’s response, and when it had come, she’d shoved her phone away as though contact with it was toxic. It had taken her a great deal of breathing exercises and careful affirmations for her to finally read it. It’d been quite underwhelming, all in all. A simple “ _I’ll be there in thirty_ ”. She’d expected some angry “ _why can’t you just drop it off_ ” or something along those lines - she certainly hadn’t expected him to be willing to work with her.

Regardless, Courtney found herself perched near the doorway, drumming her fingers anxiously against one thigh. She was under no false pretense that they would just kiss and make up, but… it might be nice to see him. Just for some closure. Even if that “closure” resulted in the pair being at each other’s throats, anything would be better than the complete radio silence from his end. _Anything_. Or so she thought.

When the knock came, her heart caught in her throat. She had to be strong, she reminded herself, willing a steely resolve over her features. She took her time in opening the door, apparently long enough that Duncan had grown impatient and deemed it appropriate to ring the doorbell.

Upon opening the door, she became painfully aware of just how much of a mess she looked. Her hair had been hastily tied up so that she could clean, and her overalls were streaked with dust and white paint, from where she’d had to cover up the holes in the walls from their pictures. Normally she wouldn’t have cared, especially not for Duncan, but the girl standing there beside him was the picture of put-together. Not in an obvious way, but in a very ‘I just threw these on and accidentally looked good' sort of way. Not like she’d made an effort when she’d tugged on her ripped jeans and her slouchy death metal tee, but like she just naturally fit them. She looked like she belonged next to Duncan, with her blue hair and her dark makeup and her piercings.

How had he moved on so fast? She couldn’t understand it, especially as she was still hurting. They’d spent two long years together, and here he was, hardly a month later with his arm around another woman’s waist. A part of her wondered if he’d been seeing her before they ever split - maybe he’d left because she wasn’t good enough; because he had someone better. It was a scary thought, but there was some merit behind it. How else could he have moved on that quickly? It didn’t make sense.

She shot a withering glare at the girl, and luckily she got the hint, disentangling herself from Duncan’s grasp and going to stand to the side. The girl offered Courtney a sad smile, and her heart broke all over again.

“Couldn’t wait to get away from me, huh princess?” He barked a laugh, taking in the apartment’s state of disarray.

It was all she could do to keep from slamming the door behind Duncan as he moved to grab his things from the coffee table. “Glad to see you’re doing so well,” she hissed, her words laced with venom. “Are you really that full of yourself? You just couldn’t _wait_ to show her off to me. Well I get it, Duncan. Message received. Just grab your shit and go.”

His eyes narrowed to slits, and he dropped the larger of the two boxes back on the coffee table, turning to fix her with a piercing glare. “Don’t flatter yourself, princess. We were already out running errands when you texted, and I’m a gentleman. Didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

Suddenly she was all up in his personal space, one finger stabbing into his chest. The scathing look on her face didn’t go unnoticed. “You do _not_ get to call me that anymore. I am not your _anything_ , and I am certainly not your princess.” She took a deep breath then, her tone growing colder and colder until it seemed only ice and steel glittered back at him from within those ebony eyes of hers. “You fancy yourself a gentleman? Tell that to the next girl you walk out on without a word, only to turn up at her doorstep with another woman. Do you have any idea how that makes me _feel_ , to see you there with someone else, so soon? No, that’s a stupid question. I should know by now that you, of all people, can’t feel so much as a _shred_ of empathy.” Angry tears threatened to spill over, and she took a step back, crossing her arms as she did so. “God, Duncan, for all I know, you cheated on me with that girl.”

She turned and stalked towards the door, leaving him to collect his things before he could even finish processing what she’d said. She pulled the door shut behind her, heaving out a dejected sigh once she heard the tell-tale _click_ that meant it was fully closed.

“Did you hear any of that?” She asked, slumping with relief when the girl shook her head to signify that no, she hadn’t heard anything. She offered her hand, returning that same sad smile she’d been given upon their arrival. “I’m Courtney. Despite what Duncan’s probably told you, I’m not a total psychopath.”

The girl accepted the handshake with a soft chuckle. “Gwen. And he hasn’t said much, honestly. Today’s the first I’ve heard of you.”

“Really?” Courtney cocked an eyebrow. If she hadn’t been certain before, she was now - those two years spent together had meant jack shit to Duncan.

She slumped against the door, waving away Gwen’s concerned glance. “Asshole walked out on me after two years, can you believe that? And he has the nerve to show up here, with you, and still act surprised that I’m moving. As if he doesn’t know why.

“I’m sorry, I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to me moan about your boyfriend.”

Gwen shook her head, moving to seat herself next to Courtney. The two gazed out across the balcony for a while, comfortable in the silence, if a bit sad. “If anything, I’m the one who should be sorry,” Gwen offered, after a few moments. “I know how this has to look to you. If I’d known…” she sighed. “I would’ve made him drop me off at home, y’know? Maybe you guys could’ve talked things over.”

It was Courtney’s turn to laugh at that. “Oh no, we still would’ve had a screaming match. Honestly, it’d probably have been worse than this. I should probably thank you for sparing me the trouble.”

The two shared a tentative smile, helping each other to their feet as Duncan emerged carrying a stack of boxes. “Princess -” he called, but she had already turned around and stalked inside. Gwen waved through the window, and she smiled, shutting the yet-to-be-packed curtains before she could make the mistake of watching them leave.

She couldn’t _wait_ to be out of this place.


	2. recognize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eventually, the issue became clear: fire needs air, but air does not need fire. Air nourishes fire, but it moves on. It always does. And then the fire fizzles out, without air to feed it. Fire dies. Air lives on.
> 
> in which duncan makes mistakes. a lot of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so i 100% was planning on leaving this as a oneshot, but writing the first part relied heavily on figuring out duncan's state of mind throughout this whole ordeal, alongside courtney's. after i finished it i found myself going back and thinking about that second point of view a lot, and it wouldn't leave me alone until i wrote it down. so here it is: duncan being an incredibly stupid, selfish asshole, and feeling really, really guilty about it afterwards.

Change was something Duncan desperately feared. Not in his surroundings - he was adaptable, and he knew how to handle it - but in himself. He’d built his walls and become who he was for a reason, and he refused to let her take that away from him, with her too sweet words and her innate need to fix anything that came her way. If Courtney saw something as damaged, she loved to take it in and patch it up before sending it on its merry way again. Birds fallen from nests, old, worn out books, even people. He knew it was only a matter of time before she did the same to him.

So he let himself indulge in her, for a while. There were times where he’d get so swept up in her that he’d forget to have his walls up, and with every broken, damaged bit of him he let slip, he knew he was closer to that fate. He’d be fixed up and repackaged, all tied up with a nice little bow and sent off to the world. As time passed and their relationship progressed, it became less about his fear of change, and more about a new-found fear of losing _her_. She made him better, stronger than he’d ever been, and he needed her like fire needs air. It was enough for him to just be in her presence, to relish the energy and passion she brought to the table.

He would’ve stayed as long as she wanted him to. He would’ve done absolutely anything for her, and that terrified him.

Eventually, the issue became clear: fire needs air, but air does not need fire. Air nourishes fire, but it moves on. It always does. And then the fire fizzles out, without air to feed it. Fire dies. Air lives on.

He needed to leave before she could - desperately needed to spare himself that pain. It was irrational and reckless and foolish, sure, but wasn’t that his style?

It was too late to reflect on how bad of a decision it may or may not have been, anyways. His hand still smarted from where he’d slammed the door and subsequently punched it, gunning for his bike the moment he’d begun to process what had happened. By now, a bruise had begun blooming there, a black and purple reminder of just how badly he’d fucked up.

He had never planned for it to go down that way, but it was done. She’d asked him to move in with her, seeing as they spent most of their time at her place, anyways. It was the next logical step in their relationship, and in all honesty, it should’ve happened well before they hit the two year mark. He’d found a way to shut down the conversation every time it seemed to be steering in that direction, and she’d left it at that - until now. This time, she’d made it clear that she wouldn’t back down until he _talked_ about it, at the very least. So he’d panicked. Created an argument out of thin air, as he seemed so prone to doing, and had made his escape.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to move in with her. In fact, every part of him had been aching to say yes, to give in; to get to wake up next to her every morning was a dream he’d never dared imagine. No, he very much wanted to move in with her. It was what would come next that terrified him.

His walls would come crumbling down, slowly but surely, especially in such close proximity to her. That was a given. Once she’d seen him so bare, so vulnerable, and patched him up as best she could, he’d be on his own. It was a thought he couldn’t handle. And so he’d left before she had the chance, his walls and his dignity still intact.

She hadn’t followed him, though from the looks of his tiny studio apartment, she might as well have.

Her presence was everywhere. A photobooth strip of the two of them was tucked into his windowsill; the first picture was of him doing bunny ears behind her head with their tongues out, the second was her pulling his ear in retaliation, and the third was him pressing a kiss into her cheek, her eyes closed, looking entirely too happy. He ripped it down with a grimace and stuffed it into his junk drawer. A bottle of her favorite perfume had been left in a corner of his bathroom counter, there in case she ever needed to leave for work from his place. One of his hoodies hung over the shower door, freshly washed and yet still managing to smell of her. Likely because she’d put it there, he realized, his stomach lurching. A paint swatch with various shades of white was taped to the wall above his bed frame - one he’d bought after a trip to IKEA with her - there because Courtney claimed he needed to “ _spruce up the place_ ”. She’d tried to explain the differences in white to him once - _this one’s eggshell, see, it’s a little more yellow than the others_ \- but she’d given up once it became clear that he didn’t get it. A hastily scrawled grocery list in her handwriting lay out on the coffee table, and if he looked in the cupboards, he was sure he’d find a box of her favorite tea bags. She’d taken so many pains to make the place seem like a home, and he supposed it had to be, now. He couldn’t exactly go back.

Everything that was glaringly out of place in his _bachelor’s pad_ , as she’d once called it, got shoved away in that same junk drawer. The hoodie stayed, even if it _did_ smell like her perfume, a lovely honey and vanilla scent that she’d grown quite fond of during their time together, as did the paint swatch. He kind of liked that quiet reminder of her. She was gone for good, he knew that, but that didn’t mean he had to forget her.

He was halfway done cleaning when reality finally hit. He slumped against the side of his bed, clutching a blouse that had been abandoned beneath it for obvious reasons close to him.

He usually wasn’t much of a crier - but this time, when the tears came, he didn’t hold back.

***

He met Gwen by chance, only a few short days after he’d walked out on Courtney. Tattoos were a coping mechanism for him - he’d planned on getting a raven on his wrist, a tiny addition to his growing sleeve, but his go-to artist had taken an unplanned vacation. He agreed to make an appointment with a new artist who had had her hours bumped up as a result, and that was that.

“Ravens are a symbol of loss,” she told him when he sat down, not bothering to look up from her sketch. He nodded. “Yeah. I lost someone important to me - figured I’d mark the occasion.” She turned then, appraising him with a disinterested look, her eyes a deep midnight blue. The sketch was clutched delicately in her left hand, which she held out to him.

He took it, scanning the careful whorls of ink. The raven was mid-flight, its wings dissolving into pools of smoke. It was a gorgeous tattoo, and he said as much, amazed that she’d captured his vision so well through just one phone call. “I’m Gwen,” she offered, taking the sketch back from him as he settled into the chair, one arm extended for her to begin tracing. “Duncan,” he returned, and she smiled, revealing a smiley piercing beneath her lip, something he’d always found attractive.

They continued in silence for half an hour or so while she worked, enjoying the fact that they could be quiet without it being awkward. With Courtney, one of them always had to be talking. Usually it was her, even if she was just talking to herself (or to his backside when she knew full well he wasn’t listening). She liked to fill the silence with him. Said it made her feel safe, the talking. Not that they couldn’t be quiet around each other, but one of them always seemed to wind up talking.

Once she started talking, though, it became clear that they had a great deal in common. Music tastes, anarchist world views, the likes. He left that day with a new tattoo and a girl’s phone number - all-in-all, it had been a pretty good day.

***

At first, they would only hang out in group settings. They wound up having quite a lot of mutual friends, and had only gone this long without meeting because Gwen had been an hour away for art school until recently. They talked about anything and everything, although he had a tendency to avoid talking about anything that had happened in the past two years. Whenever it was necessary to an anecdote he’d let it slide, but he took pains not to mention Courtney. He couldn’t give a reason for it, but it felt wrong, somehow, like she was something he couldn’t share with anyone else. His friends took it in stride, though he wasn’t oblivious to their occasional eye rolls or irritated glances. They knew what she’d meant to him, and they had a hard time believing he’d moved on already, no matter what he said to convince them otherwise.

They got into the ‘dating’ side of things rather quickly, starting with trips to dive bars and shifting to horror movie marathons in his flat. It was casual, but they were both committed. The whole boyfriend/girlfriend ordeal was never discussed; it just fell into place. He stopped referring to her as “ _Gwen, my friend from the tattoo parlor_ ”, and moved on to “ _my girlfriend_ ”. He called her princess, once, just to see how it would feel, and found that the world felt like oil on his tongue. He didn’t say it again, and she didn’t ask.

Easy - that’s what their relationship was. It was so easy to fall in step beside her, his arm around her waist, her lips on his neck. Neither of them questioned it. It was better not to.

So when _her_ name flashed across his screen, her number still saved under “ _Princess_ ” with a few choice emojis alongside it because he couldn’t bring himself to change it, he found that maybe it wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. Because he still had that urge buried somewhere to do whatever she asked of him, right when she needed it. Because she’d done what he’d been pretending he didn’t want to do - she’d texted him. Reached out.

He tried to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he realized it wasn’t to reconcile. She had some of his things, and she wanted them gone. Out of her life, just like him. Gwen flashed him a concerned look from across the aisle, and he wiped the hurt off his face, dropping an energy drink into their cart and planting a kiss on her cheek. “My ex, Courtney. Guess she found some of my stuff while cleaning and wanted me to pick it up.” She didn’t question it; just nodded, and continued shopping. _Easy_ , he reminded himself, though his stomach churned.

They’d taken her car, a lovely, dark blue beast of a car. Grocery shopping wasn’t an ideal errand to run on a motorcycle. He’d almost forgotten she was there, fingers tapping against the wheel in apprehension as he drove. She followed him up the stairs, their hands laced together as though they weren’t heading up to see his ex. He supposed it would be a lot weirder for her if she knew… well, if she knew _anything_ at all about Courtney. For all she knew, they’d dated for three weeks six months ago and she’d just wanted to give him back a hoodie or two. He grimaced. That was a conversation he did _not_ want to have.

Anticipation built in his stomach as he knocked, waited a few moments, and then rang the doorbell. For someone so punctual, it was a bit out of character to not have her rushing to the door first thing. When she opened the door, his breath whooshed out all at once, leaving him speechless. She was even more gorgeous than he’d remembered, even in her sloppy, mid-clean outfit. Her hair was tied back in a way that had the looser strands falling forwards to frame her face, and she wore denim overalls, streaked with dust and paint.

The look on her face was one of shock and hurt - and though she composed herself quickly, just that brief flash of pain was enough to send him spiraling. He had put that look there; he had hurt the one girl he’d promised to stand by through anything, to love, always.

He hardly noticed when Gwen pulled away, his focus on the boxes littered across the apartment. He shouldered his way inside, guilt knifing through his stomach at the sight of it. Everything was in disarray - it was clear she was moving. Away from him. Away from the life they’d built together. “Couldn’t wait to get away from me, huh princess?” He barked a laugh after, falling easily into his snarky, defensive mannerisms. “Glad to see you’re doing so well,” she spat, as he moved towards the table. His shoulders tensed when she spoke. “Are you really that full of yourself? You just couldn’t _wait_ to show her off to me. Well I get it, Duncan. Message received. Just grab your shit and go.”

She _didn’t_ get it, that was the problem. It hadn’t been a selfish move. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, or to drive her further away. He’d been his usual, impulsive self, and dived for the chance to see her again - to the point that he’d forgotten Gwen, forgotten how it might seem to her. He opened his mouth to tell her as much, but the wrong words tumbled out. “Don’t flatter yourself, princess. We were already out running errands when you texted, and I’m a gentleman. Didn’t want to keep you waiting.” He knew what he’d done the moment he finished speaking, wincing at the obvious bite in his voice. _Stupid, self-sabotaging prick_.

She stalked towards him, anger flaring in her pretty almond eyes. The stabbing guilt in his gut returned with a vengeance as she thrust a finger against his chest, her face close enough to his that he might’ve pulled her in for one last kiss, had he not known it would earn him a swift knee to the groin.

“You do _not_ get to call me that anymore. I am not your _anything_ , and I am certainly not your princess.” The way her voice broke over the word ‘ _princess_ ’ shattered him completely. “You fancy yourself a gentleman? Tell that to the next girl you walk out on without a word, only to turn up at her doorstep with another woman. Do you have any idea how that makes me _feel_ , to see you there with someone else, so soon? No, that’s a stupid question. I should know by now that you, of all people, can’t feel so much as a _shred_ of empathy,” she continued, and his heart tore a little more with each word. It took all of his resolve and then some to keep himself from reaching a hand out and brushing away the tears that threatened to spill over.

It stung, to hear that she thought so low of him. He hadn’t _meant_ to hurt her, hadn’t meant to come off as selfish or rude. But he had - and he hated himself for it. “God, Duncan, for all I know, you cheated on me with that girl.” And then he hated himself more.

He slumped against the couch after she walked out, his head cradled in his hands as he tried to force the tears back. He had done a lot of shitty things to her, had hurt beyond reason and hadn’t bothered to realize what his actions would do but he would never, _never_ cheat on her. The fact that he had broken her trust enough for her to even consider it brought on a different sort of agony. A white-hot flash of pain, strong enough that he wanted to punch a wall or a door or a man hard enough that he ruptured the skin on his knuckles.

Muffled voices sounded from the other side of the door, and Duncan sighed, using their temporary distraction as an opportunity to collect himself. He glanced about the apartment, trying and failing to withhold a wince at the state of disarray. The pictures of them she’d once had on proud display had since been taken down, the various touches of personality he’d left around packed away, likely in one of the boxes with his name scrawled so neatly on the side. Even in her distress, she managed to stay organized. It hurt to see.

Pushing the stabbing guilt to the back of his mind, he grabbed the boxes, and nudged the door open with a foot so as to give them the chance to move away. The sight of her careful, sad smile cracked his heart open further, were it even possible, and he paused outside the doorway, searching for the right words to say. “Princess -” he began, but Courtney brushed past him and shut the door before he ever had the chance to finish. Gwen waved at her from beside him, turning back once she’d shut the curtains and was no longer privy to their actions. She grabbed his arm, and pulled him down the stairs alongside her, the soft look on her face twisting quickly into one of anger and hurt. The guilt returned in waves when he realized he didn’t feel nearly as bad about hurting her as he had Courtney.

“Two years,” she hissed, once they’d made it down to the car. “You didn’t mention her once, and you dated her for two _years_. Fuck you, Duncan.”

He dropped the boxes into the trunk, opening his mouth to respond, before thinking better of it. There was nothing he could possibly say to rectify the situation, and honestly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Nothing could compare to the girl he’d lost.

“Get in the car. I’m driving.”

He only nodded, sliding numbly into the passenger seat. They drove in silence for a few minutes, the radio blasting the same bedroom pop shit that Gwen adored. “Talk to me,” she demanded, turning the volume down, eyes still focused on the road ahead. And so he did. He told her everything, every little sordid detail, from the way they’d met to the reason he’d walked out on her not so long ago. He talked until he was blue in the face, and they’d looped around his apartment block more than a dozen times. She parked, fixing him with a gentle stare, before pulling him in for a careful hug.

“No more of that girlfriend bullshit, Duncan. What you need right now is a friend.” He nodded into her shoulder, releasing a heavy breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She was right. He needed a friend more than anything, right now.

Maybe with her help, he could avoid screwing up so badly. Maybe he could be _better_. And that didn’t sound so bad, really. He could try again when he was ready. Could prove he’d grown. Not now, maybe not for a while. But the option would be there, should he ever choose to take it.

He knew he would. He loved her too much to ever stop trying.


End file.
